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DUPLICATE  SOLD 
N.  Y.  STATE  LIBRARY 


EXPORTS  AND  IMPORTS, 


AS   SHOWING   THE 


RELATIVE    ADVANCEMENT    OF    EVERY    NATION 


WEALTH,    STRENGTH, 


AND 


INDEPENDENCE 


[in  a  series  of  articles  contributed  to  the  boston  transcript.] 


BY 

JAMES    L.  vBAKER. 


PRINTED   BY    ORDER   OF   THE   COMMITTEE   OF    CORRESPONDENCE 

APPOINTED   UNDER    THE    RESOLUTIONS     OF    A    MEETING 

ON   THE    15th    of   JUNE,    1858,    OF   THE   FRIENDS 

OF    PROTECTION    TO    DOMESTIC    INDUSTRY. 


PHILADELPHIA 
1859. 


At  a  meeting  held  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  December  31,  1858,  of  the 
Committee  of  Correspondence,  appointed  under  the  resolutions  of  a  meeting 
on  the  15th  of  June  last,  of  the  friends  of  Protection  to  Domestic  Industry, 
irrespective  of  party,  it  was :  — 

Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Committee  of  Seventy-Six,  be,  and 
he  is  hereby  requested  to  procure,  for  the  use  of  this  Committee,  five 
thousand  copies  of  a  pamphlet  entitled  '« Exports  and  Imports,  as  showing 
the  relative  advancement  of  every  nation  in  wealth,  strength,  and  inde- 
pendence ;  by  James  L.  Baker." 

HENRY  C.   CAREY, 
JAMES   MILLIKEN, 
WM.   D.   LEWIS, 
G.  N.  ECKERT, 
JOHN  W.   O'NEILL, 
AVILLIAM  ELDER, 

THOJ^IAS   BALCH, 

Committee. 


Hrn54 

B23> 


f^- 


EXPORTS  AID   IMPORTS. 


The  September  number  of  Hunt's  Merchant's  Magazine  contains 
some  very  interesting  statistics  in  regard  to  the  commerce  of  Great 
Britain.  It  seems  that  England  imports  annually,  to  feed  her  pop- 
ulation, grain  and  produce  to  the  amount  of  over  $12(>,000,,000,  Of 
this  food,  a  large  part  is  exported  in  the  shnpe  of  cotton  cloth,  the 
export  of  which,  in  1857,  reached  near  to  2,000,000,000  yards,  valued 
at  about  $140,000,000.  The  principal  markets  to  which  these 
goods  were  sent,  are  as  follows : 


To  Turkey, 

Syria  and  Palestine, 

Egypt,       - 

United  States, 

Foreign  West  Indies, 

Brazil, 

Buenos  Ayres,    - 

Chile,     - 

Peru,  -  _         _ 

China  and  Hong  Kong, 


Yards. 

123,000,000 
39,000,000 
55,000,000 

177,000,000 
72,000,000 

186,000,000 
32,000,000 
38,000,000 
34,000,000 

121.000.000 


Java,  -         -         - 

Gibraltar, 

British  North  America, 

British  West  Indies, 

British  East  Indies,     - 

Australia, 

Hanse  Towns, 

Holland, 


Yards. 
30,000,000 
19,000,000 
32,000,000 
45,000,000 
469,000,000 
30,000,000 
50,000,000 
30,000,000 


Portugal,  Azores,Maderia,  47,000,000 


First  on  the  list  stands  the  East  Indies,  then  Brazil,  then  the 
United  States,  then  Turkey,  and  then  China.  The  United  States 
seems  to  be  in  rather  odd  company,  two  of  these  nations  being 
Pagan  and  half  civilized,  one  Mahommedan  and  fast  going  to  decay, 
and  the  fourth  not  much  advanced  beyond  either  of  the  others.  Eng- 
land has  persuaded  them,  however,  as  well  as  ourselves,  of  the 
admirable  working  of  free  trade  ;  and  we  find  ourselves  standing 
high  on  the  list.  We  may  hope  to  rival  Brazil,  but  can  hardly  ex- 
pect to  come  up  to  the  East  Indies,  which  are  entirely  under  English 
control.     If  we  add  to  this  $140,000,000,  the  value  of  cotton  yarns 


M897263 


(^^ZiTtA. 


4  EXPORTS    AND    MIPORTS. 

exported,  which  are  not  included,  and  also  the  amount  of  cotton 
m&  consumed  in  Great  Britain,  we  shall  find  the  sum  sufficient  to 
pay  ihe  $120,000,000  imported  for  food  and  a  very  large  part  of  the 
raw  cotton  imported  ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  manufacturers  of  cotton 
alone,  after  paying  for  the  raw  cotton,  pay  also  for  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  grain  and  produce  imported  for  the  benefit  of  that  and  all  other 
branches  of  manufacture.  This  shows  how  manufacturing  nations 
grow  rich  at  the  expense  of  the  producing  ones. 

Here  we  see  how  England,  after  coming  out  of  the  Crimean  war, 
which  would  alone  have  exhausted  the  resources  of  half  the  civilized 
world,  was  even  stronger  than  when  she  went  into  it,  and  immedi- 
ately engaged  in  another  war  with  about  half  the  human  race,  calling 
for  nearly  100,000  men  to  be  supported  thousands  of  miles  from 
home.  No  nation  was  ever  in  possession  of  such  enormous  wealth 
as  is  requisite  for  such  enterprises  as  these,  which  England  carries 
on  without  feeling  the  burden,  while  we  are  borrowing  money  in  a 
time  of  profound  peace  to  defray  the  current  expenses  of  our  Gov- 
ernment. Such  is  the  difference  between  nations  which  send  off 
other  produce  to  a  foreign  and  far  distant  market,  and  those  that  buy 
that  produce  to  feed  their  operatives  and  pay  for  it  in  manufactured 
goods. 

England  has  been  teaching  the  Asiatics  some  lessons  in  free  trade. 
She  finds  the  process  rather  more  severe,  to  be  sure,  than  was  found 
necessary  with  the  United  States,  Brazil,  and  Turkey.  In  the  case 
of  the  last  three  respectable  communities,  she  was  not  obliged  to  pro- 
ceed vi  et  armis,  but  found  it  not  difficult  to  effect  her  purpose  by 
diplomacy  and  large  subscriptions  of  money  to  circulate  free  trade 
documents  and  operate  with,  as  was  the  case  especially  in  the  United 
States  just  before  the  passage  of  the  Tariff  of  1846.  Hindoos  and 
Chinamen  require  a  different  sort  of  argument,  or  what  may  be  called 
"  argumentum  ad  hominem.'^  Gradually  she  stretches  out  her  wiry 
arms  to  assist  the  thunders  of  her  fleet  and  army,  and  the  persuasive 
voice  of  her  moral  suasion,  in  annexing  the  whole  world  to  the  great 
manufacturing  centre. 

In  foresight  and  practical  wisdom,  England  is  yet  a  generation  in 
advance  of  all  other  nations,  and  hence  her  immense  wealth  and 
power,  before  which  France  and  all  Europe  stand  in  awe.  With  all 
our  invention,  genius,  mental  and  bodily  activity,  we  need  to  take 
some  lessons  of  that  wonderful  people  from  whose  ancestors  we  also 
descended.     What  we  need  is  to  theorise  less  and  to  consult  experi- 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  O 

ence  more,  and,  in  our  universal  benevolence,  to  remember  that 
charity  which  begins  at  home  and  looks  first  after  our  own  interests' 
and  then  after  those  of  our  neighbors.  If  a  reduction  of  our  tariff 
was  necessary  in  order  to  induce  England  to  take  our  cotton,  that 
would  furnish  some  excuse  for  us,  though  a  very  poor  one,  lecause  if 
she  was  not  obliged  to  take  it,  as  is  the  fact,  still  our  true  policy 
would  be  to  work  it  up  ourselves,  and  export  it  not  in  its  crude  state, 
but  in  the  compact  form  of  manufactured  goods.  All  nations  that 
export  produce  to  a  foreign  and  distant  market  must  remain  poor. 
It  would  be  far  better  for  us  if  we  were  importers  of  grain  like 
France  and  England,  and  exporters  of  it  in  the  results  of  mechanical 
labor,  than  to  send  our  produce  five  thousand  miles  to  be  returned  in 
the  shape  of  foreign  mechanical  labor. 

Our  present  condition  may  be  summed  up  as  follows :  The  West 
has  been  sending  her  grain  and  produce  5000  miles  to  a  distant  and 
uncertain  market,  where  they  mu^t  compete  with  the  pauper  labor  of 
the  grain  growing  regions  of  Europe  on  the  Danube  and  Baltic, 
after  paying  nearly  their  whole  value  in  cost  of  transportation.  The 
necessary  results  of  such  a  system  are  now  manifest.  The  West  is 
poor,  and  is  likely  to  be  poorer,  unless  she  goes  to  work  to  build  up 
a  home  market  for  her  produce,  and  to  bring  the  mill  and  the  forge 
much  nearer  to  her  farms  than  5000  miles.  Our  factory  and  railroad 
stocks  are  not  worth  an  average  of  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar.*  A 
foreign  commission  is  coming  over  from  London  to  examine  into  the 
affairs  of  our  Illinois  Central  Railroad,  and  the  Presidency  of  our 
Reading  Road  has  passed  into  the  hands  of  an  agent  of  foreign  in- 
terests. Our  foreign  debt  is  from  $300,000,000  to  $400,000,000, 
calling  for  a  large  annual  amount  of  specie  to  pay  up  our  interest. 


*  The  following  is  the  list  of  stocks  prepared  by  Joseph  G.  Martin,  for  the  week  ending 
Dec.  21, 1858. 

Thi.s  list  does  not  include  the  Bay  State  Mills,  Iladley  Falls,  Lawrence  Machine  Shop, 
the  New  England  Worsted  Company,  and  other  failed  concerns  involving  a  loss  of 
five  or  six  millions,  and  shows  conclusively  that  the  present  value  of  Factory  Stock  is 
less  than  fifty  per  cent,  of  its  cost.  If  the  history  of  New  England  Manufactures  should 
be  written  it  would  probably  appear  that  they  had  averaged  a  loss  of  seventy-five  per  cent, 
or  more,  to  those  who  have  invested  in  them.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how  purely  incidental 
are  the  benefits  derived  from  the  protection  of  manufacturers.  These  benefits  accrue  not  to 
the  manufacturer  but  to  the  commission  merchant,  the  operative,  the  mechanic,  and  laborer, 
the  farmer  who  sells  his  produce,  the  wool  grower,  the  cotton  grower,  the  consumer,  the 
country  at  large,  to  every  one  in  fact,  except  the  very  party  who,  in  language  sometimes 
heard,  is  said  to  be  the  one  to  be  benefited  by  what  is  called  a  monopoly  and  partial  legislation. 
Under  complete  protection,  the  manufacturer  is  fortunate  if  he  averages  six  per  cent,  on  his 
investments,  while  under  inadequa^te  protection  as  at  present,  he  must  be  content  with  few 


6 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPOIlTS. 


Our  ocean  steamships  are  nearly  driven  off,  and,  in  the  opinion  of 
some,  the  character  of  our  shipping  is  declining.  Our  ships  have 
long  been  idle  or  doing  a  losing  business,  and  our  Government  is 
borrowing  money  to  meet  its  daily  wants.  Such  are  the  facts  to  be 
explained  in  some  way  or  other,  and  this  picture  is  in  no  way  colored 
or  exaggerated.  It  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  that  I  consider  all  this 
to  flow  mainly  from  one  source,  and  that  is  the  Tariff  of  1846.  Had 
the  Tariff  of  1842  remained,  most  of  our  railroads  would  now  be 
worth  par,  and  be  owned  here  as  they  should  be,  and  not  abroad. 
Instead  of  gradually  declining  into  a  colonial  condition,  we  should 
have  been  independent  of  the  world,  and  if  not  as  wealthy  and  pow- 
erful as  the  older  branch  of  our  family,  we  should  have  been  advanc- 
ing very  rapidly  toward  that  point,  and  been  worth  many  hundred 
millions  more  than  at  present.  When  we  adopt  a  protective  policy, 
we  shall  find  immediate  relief,  and  enter  on  a  new  course  of  pros- 
perity. Until  we  do  so,  we  shall  continue  on  our  present  course, 
tending  toward  national  poverty,  dependence,  and  demoralization,  for 
these  three  go  always  together. 


exceptions  to  lose  not  only  his  interest,  but  a  large  part  of  his  principal,  while  he  gives 
employment  and  prosperity  to  all  other  classes  of  the  community  in  which  he  lives. 


MANUFACTURING     COMPANIES. 


■ht, 


Amoskeag, 
Apple  ton, 
Atlantic, 
Bates,     . 
Boott  Mills, 
Boston, 
Boston  Duck 
Boston  Gas  I  _ 
Cambridge  Gas 
Chicopee, 
Cocheco, 
Dwight, 
Franklin, 
Great  Falls, 
Hamilton, 

Do.  Woollen 
Hill  Mill, 
Jackson, 
Laconia, 
Lancaster 
Lawrence, 
Lowell,  (av.  par) 


Par. 

Off'd. 

As'd. 

1000 

940 

975 

.   1000 

1000 

1050 

1000 

675 

725 

100 

95 

100 

.   1000 

600 

525 

750 

465 

465 

700 

400 

440 

500 

690 

700 

100 

104 

106 

.   1000 

185 

225 

650 

450* 

500 

.   1000 

475 

525 

100 

80 

85 

200 

167 

170 

.   1000 

925 

975 

100 

110 

120 

100 

80 

83 

.   1000 

550 

600 

1000 

625 

675 

450 

280* 

300 

.   1000 

850 

860 

690 

650 

575 

Lowell  Bleachery, 

Do.  Miich.  Shop, 
Lyman  Mills, 
Manchester, 
Massachusetts  Mills, 
Merrimack,  . 
Middlesex, 
Nashua, 
Naumkeag,  . 
New  England  Glass, 
Otis. 

Pacific  Mills, 
Palmer, 
Pepperell, 
Salisbury, 
Silmon  Falls, 
Sandwich  Glass, 
Stark  Mills,    . 
SufiFolk, 
Thorndike,     . 
Tremont, 
York,      . 


Par. 

Off-d. 

As'd. 

200 

240 

2Ab 

500 

195 

205 

100 

47  i 

50 

1000 

890' 

910 

1000 

700 

800 

1000 

1180 

1200 

1000 

160 

186 

500 

325 

350 

100 

102 

106 

500 

505 

526 

1000 

850 

1000 

1000 

600 

600 

1000 

400 

500 

530 

560 

100 

120 

130 

500 

200 

220 

100 

60 

76 

1000 

675 

750 

1000 

650 

750 

1000 

350 

450 

1000 

650 

700 

1000 

750 

800 

EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 


No.  2. 

I  often  find  myself  interested  and  instructed  in  looking  over  tables 
of  exports  and  imports.  We  find  here  condensed  into  a  few  figures 
as  it  were,  the  life  of  the  world,  an  epitome  of  commerce,  and  learn 
much  of  the  character  and  habits  of  the  different  nations.  More 
than  this,  we  can,  if  we  mistake  not,  deduce  from  them  a  law  more 
certain  and  invariable  than  can  be  found  in  most  of  the  speculations 
of  political  economy.  If  such  a  law  exists,  and  if  given  the  exports 
and  imports  of  a  nation,  we  can  decide  at  once  upon  the  progress 
that  nation  has  made  in  wealth  and  power,  together  with  the  fine  arts 
and  all  that  moral  and  intellectual  culture  that  grows  out  of  wealth, 
then  such  tables  must  be  looked  upon  with  far  greater  interest  than 
they  have  usually  excited,  and  instead  of  being  dry  and  repulsive, 
become  in  the  highest  degree  attractive  and  usefuL 

These  reflections  were  forcibly  suggested  by  the  table  of  English 
exports  of  cotton  copied  into  my  last  article.  I  doubt  if  we  make 
ourselves  sufficiently  acquainted  with  such  statistics,  and  believe  that 
very  few  are  aware  that  we  imported  in  1857,  177,000,000  yards  of 
cotton  cloth,  valued  at  $13,000,000,  from  England  alone,  or  nearly 
one-tenth  of  the  2,000,000,000  yards  exported  by  that  nation  during 
the  last  year,  and  that  we  figured  prominently  in  such  respectable 
company  as  the  East  Indies,  Brazil,  China,  and  Turkey.  It  is  quite 
common  to  hear  the  remark  that  England  cannot  trouble  us  much 
now  in  the  article  of  cotton.  She  troubles  us,  however,  to  the  extent 
of  $13,000,000  per  annum,  and  more  than  she  would  be  allowed  to 
trouble  any  otber  civilized  nation.  It  is  well  to  look  at  such  figures, 
and  to  ask  ourselves  what  they  mean,  if  they  mean  anything  which 
it  is  important  for  the  people  to  know ;  for  they  are  in  theory  at  least 
our  legislators  and  rulers.  The  law  to  which  I  have  referred  is  this, 
— that  the  progress  a  nation  makes  in  wealth  and  strength  is  in 
proportion  to  the  ratio  which  its  exports  of  manufactures  bears  to  its 
exports  of  produce  and  raw  material ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  na- 
tions are  rich  or  poor  according  as  their  population  is  engaged  in 
agricultural  or  manufacturing  employments. 


O  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

Our  exports  for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1857,  were  $338,985,- 
065.  Of  this  sum  $30,000,000  only  consisted  of  manufactured 
goods,  of  which  $6,000,000  were  in  cotton  goods,  $4,766,981  in  iron, 
and  nothing  in  woollen.  Here  we  have  then,  $309,000,000  in  prod- 
uce and  raw  material,  and  $30,000,000  in  manufactures,  or  about  ten 
to  one.  Some  of  our  principal  exports  were  as  follows :  productions 
of  the  sea,  such  as  oil,  whalebone,  sperm  candles,  fish  smoked  and 
pickled,  $3,739,644;  productions  of  the  forest,  such  as  staves,  timber, 
lumber,  all  manufactures  of  wood,  naval  stores,  tar,  pitch,  ashes,  and 
furs,  $14,699,711;  products  of  agriculture,  such  as  animals,  beef, 
tallow,  hides,  butter,  cheese,  pork,  hams,  lard,  wool,  hogs,  horses, 
sheep,  &c.,  $16,736,458;  vegetable  food,  such  as  wheat,  flour,  corn, 
meal,  potatoes,  apples,  onions,  rice,  &c.,  $58,333,176;  cotton,  $131,- 
575,859  ;  tobacco,  $2,805,865  ;  gold  and  silver  coin,  $28,777,372 ; 
gold  and  silver  bullion,  $31,300,980. 

In  the  same  year,  England  exported  to  the  extent  of  $610,000,- 
000.  Of  this  sum  about  one-third  goes  to  her  colonies,  over  $100,- 
000,000  to  the  United  States,  about  $60,000,000  to  the  Hanse-towns, 
Hanover,  Prussia,  &c.,  and  $30,000,000  to  France.  This  enormous 
sum  of  $610,000,000  consists  almost  entirely  of  manufactured  goods 
in  one  shape  or  another.  England  exports  no  produce  or  raw  material 
to  any  extent,  except  as  it  is  worked  up  into  the  products  of  mechan- 
ical skill.  Here,  then,  we  have  two  systems  diametrically  opposed 
to  each  other.  In  the  one  case  the  exports  are  nearly  all  of  produce 
or  raw  material,  and  in  the  other  case  nearly  all  manufactured.  We 
export  $339,000,000,  of  which  only  $30,000,000  are  manufactures. 
England  exports  $610,000,000,  of  which  nearly  the  whole  is  in 
manufactures. 

The  highest  and  best  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  law  which  I 
suppose  to  exist  is  to  be  found  in*fhe  condition  of  England,  to  which 
I  alluded  in  my  last  article.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  the 
wealth,  and  therefore  the  power  of  that  nation  whose  warehouses 
may  be  called  the  storehouses  of  the  world.  The  debt  of  England, 
commenced  in  the  timo  of  William  and  Mary,  has  steadily  grown 
until  it  has  reached  the  enormous  sum  of  $4,000,000,000,  divided 
among  about  270,000  stockholders.  This  debt  in  its  early  history 
was  a  source  of  constant  alarm  to  the  English  statesmen,  but  still 
the  ability  to  pay  increased  more  rapidly  than  the  debt. 

Just  before  the  American  Kevolution,  when  the  debt  was  in  its  in- 
fancy, Mr.  Burke  declared  it  his  opinion  that  the  burden  would  prove 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  9 

greater  than  could  be  borne,  and  that  the  nation  was  ruined.  The 
minister,  George  Grenville,  was  of  the  same  opinion,  unless  the 
colonies  could  be  compelled  to  bear  a  part  of  the  heavy  load.  Hence 
our  Revolution.  It  has  been  long  conceded  that  Mr.  Burke  made  a 
great  mistake,  and  Lord  Macaulay  quotes  it  as  an  instance  of  the 
liability  to  err  on  the  part  of  the  shrewdest  and  most  profound 
statesmen.  The  three  per  cents.,  he  says,  are  the  safest  investment 
the  world  has  ever  known,  and  undoubtedly  he  is  right.  The  people 
are  heavily  taxed,  but  it  is  to  pay  each  other,  and  the  national  debt 
is  now  considered  a  bond  of  union  and  a  sure  guaranty  of  the  sta- 
bility and  permanence  of  the  English  Constitution. 

England  is  far  better  able  to  pay  the  interest  on  her  debt  now, 
than  when  it  originated,  one  hundi-ed  and  fifty  years  ago ;  and  can 
go  into  the  market  to-day  and  raise  more  money  than  could  be  bor- 
rowed by  half,  if  not  the  whole  of  Continental  Europe.  She  has 
the  solid  wealth,  and  of  course,  a  credit  corresponding  to  it.  Great 
Britain  has  invested  in  railroads,  since  1829,  $15,000,000,000.  The 
gross  earnings  of  her  railroads  for  the  last  year  were  $120,000,000, 
and  the  declared  dividends  $65,000,000.  Besides  which,  English 
capital  has  been  invested  in  American  railroads  and  other  securities 
to  the  extent  of  some  hundreds  of  millions.  The  Crimean  war  cost 
many  hundred  millions,  to  say  nothing  of  the  War  in  the  East.  The 
wealth  of  England  was  the  destruction  of  Bonaparte,  and  is  the  dread 
of  his  nephew,  who  well  knows  its  extent  and  its  irresistible  power. 
In  another  article  I  propose  to  inquire  into  the  cause  of  a  phenomenon 
so  wonderful,  as  that  a  small  island,  territorially  not  much  larger 
than  Cuba,  "  should  so  get  the  start  of  this  majestic  world,  and  bear 
the  palm  alone." 


10  KXPOUTS    AND    IMPORTS. 


No.    3. 
lESngland. 

In  my  last  I  affirmed  the  existence  of  a  certain  and  invariable 
law  in  political  economy,  which  was  that  all  nations  must  be  poor 
and  weak  who  relied  on  their  exports  of  produce  and  raw  material 
to  a  distant  market.  Many  things  come  in  to  modify  the  operation 
of  this  law,  such  as  race,  natural  advantages,  emigration,  &c.  We 
should  not  expect  to  see  the  law  operating  as  immediately  or  as 
completely  in  the  United  States  as  in  Cuba,  the  P]ast  Indies,  Brazil, 
or  other  producing  countries ;  but  still  I  contend  we  cannot  escape 
the  inexorable  rule,  however  great  may  be  our  natural  advantages, 
and  have  before  shown,  by  our  present  condition,  that  we  are  already 
feeling  its  pressure  to  a  very  great  extent,  and  I  doubt  not  we  shall 
continue  to  feel  it  in  an  accelerated  ratio,  as  a  downhill  course  has 
always  a  tendency  to  increase  in  rapidity. 

I  instanced  England  as  affording  the  highest  and  best  evidence  of 
the  rule,  and  referred  to  her  enormous  wealth  and  power,  overshadow- 
ing as  they  do  those  of  all  other  nations,  and  indeed  exceeding  every 
thing  known  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  sight  of  the  red 
cross  flag,  and  the  sound  of  the  reveille  at  Quebec,  are  said  to  have 
inspired  Mr.  Webster  to  apply  to  Great  Britain  the  following 
language,  alike  beautiful  and  true : 

"A  power  to  which,  for  purposes  of  foreign  conquest  and  subju- 
gation, Rome,  in  the  height  of  her  glory,  is  not  to  be  compared ;  a 
power  which  has  dotted  over  the  surface  of  the  whole  globe  with 
her  possessions  and  military  posts,  whose  morning  drum  beat,  follow- 
ing the  sun,  and  keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth 
daily  with  one  continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs 
of  England." 

Such  is  England;  and  the  inquiry  comes,  whence  this  wealth, 
which  can  thus  send  fleets  and  armies  to  the  remotest  corners  of  the 
world  ?     It  is  due,  no  doubt,  to  many  causes,  among  which  are  those 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS*  11 

great  qualities  of  the  Anglo  Saxon  race  to  which  we  belong,  such 
as  foresight,  industry,  prudence,  love  of  home  and  love  of  order, 
courage  without  rashness,  and  coolness  in  times  of  excitement,  which 
have  enabled  the  English  alone  to  establish  and  maintain  a  constitu- 
tional government  amid  the  monarchies  and  despotisms  of  Europe. 
This  love  of  order  and  capacity  for  self-government,  while  it  has 
given  security  to  government,  has  given  security  to  property,  and  thus 
encouraged  its  accumulation.  For  centuries,  men  have  felt  in  P^ng- 
land  that  what  they  accumulated  might  descend  to  their  distant 
posterity.  - 

Other  causes  might  be  enumerated ;  but  a  greater  one  than  all 
others  put  together  is  to  be  found  in  a  fortunate  adoption  of  a. 
fortunate  system,  and  in  taking  advantage  of  the  great  law  of  trade. 
Most  of  this  wealth  has  been  accumulated  within  the  last  century, 
and  since  the  adoption  of  a  policy  which  secured  complete  protection 
to  everything  which  a  British  hand  could  make.  Adam  Smith,  who 
was  a  cotemporary  with  Hume,  and  died  in  1790,  announced  the 
doctrine  of  free  trade ;  but  Englishmen  were  too  wise  to  adopt  it^. 
Their  natural  resources  were  limited  to  the  coal  and  minerals  under 
their  soil,  and  helped  by  no  tide  of  emigration.  These  resources 
Were  to  be  developed,  and  could  only  be  developed  by  a  pro- 
tective policy  which,  aided  by  the  recent  wonderful  inventions  of 
steam  power  have  made  her  mines  more  valuable  than  all  the  gold 
mines  of  the  world.  Rapidly  and  surely  she  grew  in  wealth,  and 
sent  her  vessels  to  every  part  of  the  inhabited  globe,  loaded,  not 
with  raw  material,  sent  to  distant  markets  to  be  wrought  up  and 
then  sent  back  again;  but  worked  into  the  compact  form  of 
merchandise  by  the  hands  of  her  operatives.  Within  the  last  few 
years,  when  she  had  acquired  such  an  amount  of  skill  and  capital  as 
to  fear  no  competition  with  the  great  source  of  her  wealth,  and 
could  feel  that  her  manufactures  were  no  longer  in  danger,  while 
she  needed  food  for  her  great  army  of  operatives,  and  was  desirous 
of  seeking  new  markets  tor  her  manufactures,  she  remembered  the 
doctrines  of  Adam  Smith,  and  invited  the  nations  to  participate  in 
the  advantages  of  free  trade — that  is,  she  wished  them  to  do  as  she 
said,  but  not  as  she  had  done — 'to  follow  her  advice,  but  not  her 
example. 

It  is  a  little  singular  that  having  actually  acquired  most  of  her 
great  wealth  since  the  death  of  Adam  Smith,  and  by  a  policy  just 
the  reverse  of  the  one  he  promulgated,  she  should  now  be  found 


12  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

endeavoring  to  introduce  his  doctrines  and  subscribing  large  sums 
of  money  to  circulate  tracts  for  that  purpose  in  the  United  States. 
The  practical  English  mind  has  always  rejected  his  free  trade  views, 
and  could  by  no  means  be  imposed  upon  by  any  such  specious  but 
wholly  delusive  theory  as  that.  How  does  it  happen  that  she  now 
appears  as  the  champion  of  that  which  she  has  never  practiced? 
Let  the  people  of  the  United  States  ask  themselves  if  there  is  not 
somewhere  a  cat  buried  in  this  meal.  Let  them  see  that  when 
England  proffers  free  trade  she  is  not  offering  a  Trojan  horse  filled 
with  armed  men. 

England  now  imports  grain  and  produce  to  the  amount  of 
$120,000,000.  Her  exports,  however,  are  nearly  all  of  manufac- 
tured goods,  and  amount,  as  I  have  stated,  to  the  enormous  sum  of 
over  $600,000,000.  She  has  never  faltered  in  her  course,  never 
fluctuated  in  her  policy,  but  kept  straight  on  until  she  has  risen  to 
her  present  colossal  height.  That  her  great  wealth  has  grown  out 
of  her  manufacturing  industry  no  one  can  doubt,  nor  can  there  be 
any  more  doubt  as  to  the  manner  in  which  that  industry  has  been 
fostered  and  built  up.  The  great  facts  are  that  she  is  by  far  the 
richest  nation  on.  the  globe,  and  with  the  exception  of  France,  her 
wealth  is  beyond  all  comparison.  Also  that  she  is  the  largest 
exporter,  and  that  her  exports  are  almost  exclusively  of  manufac- 
tures. Between  these  facts  there  must  be  an  intimate  relation,  and 
we  may  say  with  perfect  safety,  that  England  affords  in  herself  the 
highest  and  best  evidence  of  the  existence  of  the  law  that  in  pro- 
portion as  a  nation  exports  goods  in  a  manufactured  state,  it  grows 
in  wealth,  and  therefore  in  strength  and  independence.  We  might 
almost  rest  the  case  on  the  testimony  of  England  alone,  but  may 
find  it  useful  in  a  future  article  to  take  a  hasty  glance  at  some  of 
the  other  nations  of  the  world,  with  reference  to  their  exports  and 
imports,  as  bearing  on  this  law,  and  also  more  particularly  of  our 
own  country,  as  illustrating  it,  and  of  course,  as  affected  by  its 
operation. 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  13 


No.    4. 

Prance. 

The  nation  which  comes  next  to  England,  in  point  of  wealth  and 
strength,  is  France  ;  and  hence  it  naturally  next  attracts  our  attention 
when  looking  for  evidence  of  the  law  which  I  have  supposed  to  exist 
and  to  be  universal,  viz.:  that  the  wealth  of  a  nation  is  to  be 
measured  by  its  exports  of  manufactures  as  compared  with  its 
exports  of  raw  material  and  produce. 

In  France,  we  find  a  different  race,  different  manners,  habits, 
climate  and  soil — all  of  which  modify  to  some  extent  the  accumula- 
tion of  wealth.  That  stability  of  character  and  love  of  order  which, 
on  the  English  side  of  the  channel,  secure  stability  of  government, 
and  hence  stability  of  property,  are  sadly  wanting  on  the  French 
side.     Here  change  is  the  rule  and  not  the  exception. 

In  less  than  three-quarters  of  a  century,  France  has  run  the  whole 
circle  of  government  twice  over.  First  came  the  Revolution,  then 
the  Consuls,  then  the  Empire  or  military  despotism,  then  the  old 
Monarchy  back  again,  then  a  new  Monarchy,  then  a  Republic  again, 
and  now  another  Empire  and  strong  military  government.  Change 
has  followed  change  until  France  is,  perhaps,  capable  of  no  other  form 
of  government  than  the  one  she  now  enjoys,  and  which  is,  in  many 
respects,  well  suited  to  the  habits  and  genius  of  her  people.  As 
might  be  expected,  fluctuations  in  commercial  policy  have  attended 
these  great  and  constant  political  convulsions.  One  of  these  changes 
in  the  French  tariff  is  thus  described  by  List,  in  his  chapter  on 
France : 

"  In  his  peremptory  style.  Napoleon  had  said  that  a  country  which, 
in  the  actual  state  of  the  world,  should  attempt  to  carry  out  the 
principle  of  free  trade,  would  be  ground  to  dust.  By  this  he  evinced 
more  political  good  sense  than  the  cotemporary  economists  in  all 
their  works.  We  cannot  but  be  astonished  at  the  sagacity  with 
which  this  great  man,  without  having  studied  the  systems  of  political 


14  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 


economy,  appreciated  and  understood  the  nature  and  importance  of 
manufacturing  industry.  '  Formerly,'  Napoleon  is  reported  to  have 
said,  '  there  was  only  one  kind  of  property ;  another  has  since 
arisen — industry.'  Napoleon  then  saw  and  expressed  clearly  what 
the  economists  of  the  time  did  not  see,  or  at  least  did  not  distinctly 
express,  '  that  a  country  which  unites  manufacturing  industry  and 
agriculture  is  far  better  adjusted  and  far  richer  than  a  country 
merely  agricultural.' 

"The  downfall  of  Napoleon  was  the  signal  for  English  competi- 
tion, restrained,  during  his  rule,  to  the  work  of  smuggling,  to  assert 
and  regain  its  power  upon  the  continents  of  Europe  and  America. 
For  the  first  time,  the  English  were  then  heard  to  denounce  the 
protective  system,  and  to  extol  Adam  Smith's  theory  of  free  trade — 
a  theory  which  these  practical  Islanders  had  hitherto  branded  as 
Utopian. 

"  France,  though  her  old  dynasty  had  been  brought  back  to  hel* 
under  the  banner,  or,  at  least,  by  the  gold  of  England,  listened  but 
a  short  time  to  these  arguments.  Free  trade  with  England  occa- 
sioned such  dreadful  disasters  to  an  industry  wliich  had  grown  up 
under  the  continental  system,  that  it  became  necessary  to  seek  a 
speedy  refuge  in  the  prohibitive  system,  under  the  shield  of  which, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  M.  Dupin,  the  manufacturing  industry 
of  France  doubled  between  1815  and  1827." 

Henri  Richelot,  in  a  note  to  the  French  Translation,  says :  "  In 
1828,  the  English  policy  was  revealed  with  great  distinctness  by  the 
Liberal  Joseph  Hume,  who  spoke  without  reserve  of  strangling  the 
manufactures  of  the  Continent."  Sir  Robert  Peel  with  equal 
honesty  is  said  to  have  remarked  that,  as  an  Englishman,  he  was  in 
favor  of  free  trade,  but  that  he  could  not  speak  in  favor  of  that 
doctrine  were  he  an  American. 

That  such  is  the  policy  of  England  no  one  can  doubt ;  but  her 
statesmen  have  been  generally  too  wise  to  expose  it,  having  covered 
it  up  under  the  name  of  free  trade,  a  specious  and  popular  term,  by 
which  the  unthinking  are  imposed  upon.  All  who  allow  themselves 
to  be  thus  deluded,  will  learn  at  no  distant  time,  that  free  trade 
between  all  manufacturing  and  agricultural  nations  is  like  an 
agreement  between  a  lion  and  a  dog  to  have  a  free  hunt  together, 
the  dog  being  free  to  catch  the  game,  and  the  lion  being  free  to 
eat  it. 

The  following  extracts  from  Mr.  Carey's  twenty-third  and  twenty- 
fourth  letters  to  the  President,  furnish  some  very  interesting 
information  in  regard  to  the  exports  and  commercial  policy  of 
France : 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  15 

"  The  French  system  is  based  upon  the  idea  of  the  enlargement 
of  commerce,  resulting  from  the  compression  of  raw  commodities 
into  their  smallest  form,  and  from  the  emancipation  of  the  farmer 
from  the  tax  of  transportation. 

"  France,  after  long  experience,  lias  announced  to  the  world, 
through  the  President  of  the  Council,  M.  Baroche,  its  determination 
*  formally  to  reject  the  principle  of  free  trade  as  incompatible  with 
the  independence  and  security  of  a  great  nation,  and  as  destructive 
of  her  noblest  manufactures.'  '  No  doubt,'  as  he  continued,  '  our 
customs  tariffs  contain  useless  and  antiquated  prohibitions,  and  we 
think  they  must  be  removed.  But  protection  is  necessary  to  our 
manufactures.  This  protection  must  not  be  blind,  unchangeable,  or 
excessive,  but  the  principle  of  it  must  be  firmly  maintained.' 

"  Her  exports  of  raw  produce  are  insignificant  in  amount ;  and 
even  of  wine  the  amount  exported  but  little  exceeds  that  of  the 
years  immediately  preceding  the  revolution,  the  average  from  1814 
to  1846  having  been  only  1,401,800  hectolitres,  against  1,247,700 
tons  from  1787  to  1789. 

"  The  total  value  of  French  produce  and  manufactures  exported 
in  1856  was  $370,000,000.  The  food  and  raw  material  raised  and 
imported  had  'been  reduced  in  bulk  so  as  to  economise,  to  the 
utmost  extent,  the  cost  of  transportation.  Land  and  labor  rise  in 
value  precisely  as  they  are  emancipated  from  that  first  and  most 
oppressive  of  taxes ;  and  therefore  it  is  that  we  witness  so  large  an 
increase  in  the  price  of  those  in  France.' 

" '  What  now,'  asks  Mr.  Carey,  '  is  our  condition  compared  with 
that  of  France?  Can  we  maintain  commerce  where  we  will?  Are 
we  not  on  the  contrary  forced  to  go  where  we  must?  Can  we  send 
wheat  or  corn  to  the  people  of  California  or  Australia  ?  Do  those 
of  Brazil  or  India  desire  to  purchase  rice  or  cotton  ?  Assuredly 
not — their  demands  upon  the  outer  world  being  for  finished  com- 
modities, and  not  for  the  rude  products  of  the  soil.  Plow,  then,  do 
we  maintain  commerce  with  Brazil  and  California  ?  Is  it  not  by 
the  circuitous  route  of  Manchester  and  Lyons — the  whole  of  the  tax 
of  transportation  being  paid  hy  the  farmers  and  planters  of  the  Union  ? 
That  it  is  so  cannot  be  questioned.' " 


The  exports  of  France,  then,  are  $370,000,000  against  $600,- 
000,000  from  Great  Britain.  These  exports  are  also,  like  the  Eng- 
lish, almost  exclusively  of  manufactured  goods.  France  is  also,  as 
we  know,  second  only  to  England  in  wealth  and  strength.  Indeed, 
we  should  not  probably  come  very  far  out  of  the  way  if  we  esti- 
mated the  power  of  France,  compared  with  that  of  England,  as 
being  about  in  the  proportion  of  370  to  600.  France  furnishes, 
then,  the  next  best  argument,  and  a  very  strong  one,  in  favor  of  the 
law  that  nations  are  rich  and  strong  to  the  extent  of  their  manu- 


16  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

factured  exports,  while  they  are  weak  and  dependent  to  the  extent 
of  their  exports  of  produce  and  raw  material. 

France  in  1815,  as  we  have  seen,  found  her  only  security  against 
the  commercial  policy  of  the  English  in  a  protective  tariff.  Under 
this  system  she  has  risen  to  become  a  powerful  rival  of  England  by 
sea  as  well  as  by  land.  "We  must  look  for  our  safety  to  precisely 
the  same  course  pursued  by  France  in  1815.  England  stands  on 
one  side  and  all  the  world  on  the  other.  In  my  next,  I  propose  to 
consider  the  commercial  policy  of  Germany  and  Eussia,  and  also 
the  conditioji  of  some  of  the  producing  countries. 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  l7 

No.  5. 
Germany   and    Spain. 

In  my  last  I  alluded  to  the  exports  and  imports  of  France  as 
affording,  next  to  England,  the  strongest  evidences  in  favor  of  the 
law  that  nations  are  rich  and  strong  to  the  extent  that  their  exports 
consist  of  manufactured  goods,  and  their  imports  of  produce  and 
raw  material.  We  have  seen  that  the  exports  of  both  England  and 
France— the  former  $600,000,000,  and  the  latter  $370,000,000— 
are  almost  exclusively  of  manufactures,  or,  in  other  words,  of  raw 
material  and  food,  which  they  export,  compressed  into  the  smallest 
compass  for  transportation.  We  also  know  that  these  two  nations 
are,  by  far,  the  most  wealthy  and  powerful  on  the  earth  ;  and,  indeed, 
when  united,  as  at  present,  are  fully  a  match  for  all  the  world  in 
arms.  The  evidence  afforded  by  such  nations  in  favor  of  the  law 
supposed,  ought,  it  would  seem,  to  satisfy  a  reasonable  man,  if  not 
met  and  contradicted  by  some  very  strong  testimony  on  the  other 
side.  In  looking  at  the  condition  of  other  nations,  we  shall,  if  I 
mistake  not,  find  everything  to  confirm  and  nothing  to  refute  the 
evidence  afforded  by  England  and  France. 

If  we  turn  to  Germany  and  Russia,  we  shall  find  them  fast  rising 
under  a  protective  policy,  the  former  to  a  highly  respectable  position 
in  the  scale  of  nations,  and  the  latter  to  that  of  a  first  class  power. 
The  establishment  of  the  German  Customs  Union,  or  Zoll-  Verein, 
gave  a  great  impulse  to  the  manufactures  of  Germany.  The  form- 
ation of  this  association  is,  to  a  very  great  extent,  due  to  the  untiring 
labor  of  Frederick  List,  author  of  the  "  National  System  of  Political 
Economy,"  for  many  years  a  resident  in  this  country,  where  the 
substance  of  his  work  was  first  published  in  a  series  of  letters  in 
the  National  Zeitung.  These  letters  attracted  great  attention  and 
were  extensively  copied  throughout  the  country.  His  "  National 
System"  appeared  in  Germany  in  1841,  and  its  success  was  very 
great.  He  afterwards,  says  his  translator,  G.  A.  Matile,  "  edited 
the  Zoll-Vereins  Blatt,  a  periodical  established,  at  his  instance,  in 
1843,  by  Baron  Cotta,  in  which  he  exhibited  remarkable  talent  as  a 
journalist.     Without  any  official  station,  without  title  or  fortune, 


18  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

though  his  doctrines  were  attacked  on  every  side,  he  became  a 
prominent  man  bj  the  single  prestige  of  his  talents  and  character." 
Under  the  influence  of  this  association,  which  has  suppressed  internal 
Custom  Houses,  and  established  against  foreign  countries  a  common 
rate  of  duties,  the  manufacturing  industry,  commerce,  and  agricul- 
ture of  the  German  States,  which  it  embraces,  have  grown  rapidly, 
and  are  fast  becoming  secure  against  English  competition.  Neither 
English  diplomacy  nor  English  money  can  open  the  doors  of  Ger- 
many to  the  doctrines  of  free  trade.  She  has  suffered  too  much  in 
former  days  to  be  burnt  again  in  the  same  fire. 

Spain  was  once  distinguished  for  her  manufactures  and  her  wealth, 
but  must  now  be  classed  among  the  producing  nations,  her  exports 
consisting  mainly  of  produce  and  raw  material.  Of  her  poverty 
and  defenceless  condition  it  is  unnecessary  to  speak. 

England  has  left  the  marks  of  her  policy  in  Spain  as  we  may 
learn  from  the  following  paragraph  in  List's  chapter  on  Spain  and 
Portugal : 

"  Thus  all  the  English  treaties  of  commerce  exhibit  a  constant 
tendency  to  make  every  country,  with  which  they  negotiate,  subser- 
vient to  their  industry  and  profit,  offering  to  all  af)parent  advantages 
in  the  purchase  of  agricultural  products  and  raw  materials.  Their 
constant  effort  has  been  to  ruin  the  industry  of  other  countries,  by 
the  cheapness  of  their  manufactures,  and  by  the  length  of  their 
credits.  When  they  cannot  secure  a  low  tariff,  they  try  by  fraud  or 
cunning  device  to  elude  the  duties,  or  to  organize  smuggling  on  a 
large  scale;  they  succeeded,  by  the  first  plan,  in  Portugal,  and  by  the 
second  in  Spain.  The  imposition  of  duties  ad  valorem  upon  impor- 
tations has  been  especially  to  their  advantage  ;  it  was  with  a  view 
to  this  policy  that  they  recently  endeavored  to  discredit  the  system 
of  duties  by  weight,  established  by  Prussia." 

This  seems  to  be  a  harsh  judgment,  and  yet,  when  we  consider 
the  mercantile  character  of  the  English,  and  the  temptations  under 
which  men  labor  to  secure  their  own  interests,  we  feel  less  surprise 
at  what  can  hardly  be  denied.  Millions  of  dollars  worth  of  goods 
are  annually  introduced  into  New  York,  by  means  of  fraudulent 
invoices  under  this  same  ad  valorem  system.  I  know  of  one  instance, 
writes  an  intelligent  merchant,  where  goods  worth  four  thousand 
eight  hundred  francs,  paid  duty  on  twelve  hundred  only,  and  this  is 
no  doubt  a  fair  sample  of  the  way  in  which  our  laws  are  evaded, 
holding  out,  as  they  do,  a  direct,  irresistible,  and  wholly  needless 


EXPORTS  AND   iMfORtS.  19 

temptation  to  wholesale  fraud  and  perjury.  These  frauds,  not  only 
upon  the  revenue,  but  the  labor  of  the  country,  are  well  known  at 
Washington,  but  are  regarded  with  very  little  attention  or  notice. 
What  is  true  of  Spain,  is  also  true  of  Turkey,  which  is  but  a  pro- 
ducing country,  turned  by  England  into  a  market  for  her  manufac- 
tures, to  which  she  sent,  as  we  have  seen,  in  1857,  123,000,000 
yards  of  cotton  cloth  alone,  about  54,000,000  yards  less  than  was 
sent  to  the  United  States. 

All  the  South  American  States,  Central  America,  Mexico,  and 
Cuba,  are  almost  exclusively  producing  countries,  their  exports  being 
of  produce  and  raw  material,  which,  as  they  have  no  home  market, 
must,  of  course,  be  sent  to  a  far  distant  one,  at  the  usual  sacrifice  of 
price  and  cost  of  transportation.  The  usual  result  of  poverty  and 
weakness,  as  w^ell  as,  in  many  cases,  degradation  and  vice,  is  also 
seen  in  all  these  countries.  As  a  general  rule,  those  who  raise 
produce  for  a  distant  market  consume  nearly  or  quite  the  whole  of 
it,  if  not  more,  before  it  leaves  home.  Accumulation  is,  there- 
fore, out  of  the  question  ;  and  where  there  is  no  accumulation  there 
is  no  wealth,  and  consequently  no  strength.  The  producing 
nations  thus  afford  an  argument  as  strong  in  favor  of  the 
law  which  I  have  assumed  to  exist,  as  is  furnished  by  the  great 
manufacturing  nations,  England  and  France.  Go  where  you  will, 
you  find  the  same  relation  between  the  exports  of  a  nation  and  its 
physical  and  moral  condition ;  so  that  if  we  know  the  former,  we 
can  with  safety  pronounce  upon  the  latter.  In  another  article  I 
propose  to  consider  what  is  of  most  importance  to  ourselves,  the 
condition  of  the  United  States  as  affected  by,  or  proving  this  law. 


20  EXPORTS   AND    IMPORTS. 

No.   6. 
United    States. 

The  United  States  must  be  classed  among  the  producing  nations, 
nine-tenths  of  our  exports  being  of  produce  and  raw  material.  Yet 
we  have  made  rapid  progress,  and,  in  many  respects,  are  greatly  in 
advance  of  all  other  producing  nations.  For  this,  there  are  many 
reasons,  and  the  most  important  one  is  that  we  belong  to  the  ruling 
and  foremost  race  of  the  world — the  one  which  exhibits  in  their 
greatest  perfection  all  those  qualities  of  enterprise,  energy,  daring, 
prudence,  thrift,  love  of  order  and  love  of  home,  which  have  helped 
make  the  English  name  so  respected  and  feared  throughout  the 
world,  and  which  no  circumstances,  nor  any  commercial  system, 
however  false,  can  wholly  neutralize  or  depress.  We  have  also  an 
immense  tide  of  emigration  setting  towards  our  shores — so  great 
that,  added  to  our  natural  increase,  it  swells  our  population  to  the 
extent  of  something  like  a  million  per  annum.  Again,  we  have 
immense  natural  advantages,  embracing  every  soil  and  climate  of 
the  globe  j  millions  of  acres  of  virgin  soil,  not  yet  exhausted  by  the 
free  trade  process,  offering  such  inducements  and  such  rewards  to 
the  hand  of  labor  as  were  never  known  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

Our  political  institutions,  also,  are  in  the  highest  degree  favorable 
to  the  development  of  energy  and  industry  and  intellectual  activity, 
our  mechanics  being  not  only  laborers,  but  legislators  and  inventors. 
Common  schools  distribute  the  elements  of  learning  and  a  high 
average  of  intelligence  throughout  the  land. 

Such  are  the  unequalled  advantages  and  natural  resources  in  the 
hands  of  the  unequalled  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

The  Revolution  left  us  poor  and  feeble,  nor  was  it  until,  under 
the  lead  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  we  adopted  the  protective  policy,  that  we 
started  forward  and  developed  with  great  rapidity  our  immense 
resources.  Under  this  system,  many  of  our  States  have  accumu- 
lated considerable  wealth,  which  has  grown  with  the  growth  of  our 
manufactures.  What  wealth  we  have,  lies  not  in  the  producing,  but 
in  the  manufacturing  States,  and  it  is  on  these  States  that  the  credit 
of  our  government  is  mainly  based. 


EXPORTS   AND   IMPORTS.  21 

It  is  well  that  we  should  not  put  too  extravagant  an  estimate 
on  our  attainments  in  wealth  and  power.  Men  often  err  in 
over-estimating,  but  seldom  in  under-estimating,  their  property.  Un- 
doubtedly, defended  as  we  are  by  the  Atlantic  ocean,  and  the  martial 
spirit  of  our  people,  we  are  invincible  to  any  force  that  can  be 
brought  against  us  ;  but  that  may  be  said  of  the  Swiss  mountaineers, 
and  was  for  centuries  true  of  the  unbreeched  Highlanders,  whose 
wealth  consisted  in  what  they  carried  on  their  backs.  The  power 
that  raises  and  equips  large  fleets  and  armies  for  foreign  campaigns, 
like  that  of  the  Crimea,  is  something  different  from  this,  and  is  based 
on  a  solid  accumulation  of  capital. 

We  have  accumulated  a  very  large  debt  abroad  where  our  State 
and  railroad  securities  (nearly  all  very  much  below  par)  are  held, 
and  we  pay  over  twenty  millions  of  interest  money  per  annum.  It 
is  the  poor  who  borrow,  not  the  rich.  Our  government  is  borrowing 
money  to  meet  its  daily  wants,  a  process  which  savors  not  very  much 
of  wealth.  Its  credit  is  good,  as  far  as  it  goes,  without  a  technical 
national  debt,  but  not  so  good  as  that  of  England,  with  a  debt  of 
considerably  over  $4,000,000,000.  How  far  the  credit  of  our  gov- 
ernment, based  partly  on  an  annual  crop  of  cotton  and  grain,  for  the 
most  part  consumed  before  it  leaves  home,  would  go  in  the  way  of 
raising  and  equipping  an  army  of  only  10,000  men,  and  a  corres- 
ponding fleet  for  a  two  years'  campaign  in  China,  each  one  can  judge 
for  himself,  and  this  is  the  test  of  wealth  and  power.  How  is  it,  that, 
with  a  population  increasing  at  the  rate  of  nearly  a  million  per 
annum,  we  have  been  for  years  afraid  to  build  a  new  factory  or  a  new 
forge,  and  that  those  we  have  are  not  worth  half  the  cost  ?  It  is  not 
because  we  have  glutted  our  markets,  because  that  has  been  done  by 
England,  who  has  sent  over  $100,000,000  of  manufactured  goods 
during  the  last  year ;  nor  because  we  have  over-supplied  our  foreign 
markets,  since  all  our  exports  of  manufactures,  to  all  parts  of  the 
world,  do  not  exceed  $30,000,000  per  annum. 

Our  $300,000,000  of  exported  produce  I  regard  as  being  evidence 
not  of  strength,  but  of  weakness,  as  is  the  immense  export  of  sugar 
and  molasses  from  the  Island  of  Cuba,  which,  if  the  Spanish  armies 
and  fleets  were  withdrawn,  would  be  entirely  defenceless,  and  the 
prey  of  the  first  comer.  It  may  seem  extravagant,  but  may  be, 
nevertheless,  true,  that  in  any  emergency  which  should  test  our 
resources  as  fitting  out  such  an  expedition,  as  I  have  supposed,  to 
China,  in  connection  with  England  and  France,  our  capacity  to  raise 


22  EXPORTS   AND   IMPORTS. 

money  would  compare  with  that  of  those  two  nations,  as  our  exports 
of  manufactures  compares  with  theirs,  that  is,  in  the  ratio  of  30, 370, 
and  600,  those  being  the  number  of  millions  of  manufactured  goods 
exported  by  each  nation.  A  nation  that  exports  to  distant  markets 
its  cotton  and  corn  in  bulk,  instead  of  working  it  up  at  home  and 
then  exporting  it,  is  in  a  very  poor  way,  and  tending  constantly  to  a 
lower  grade  of  civilization  and  refinement. 

The  last  twelve  years  furnish  abundant  evidence  of  this.  It  stares 
us  in  the  face  in  every  direction.  Such  a  system,  instead  of  tending 
to  diversify  employments,  which  is  the  grand  secret  of  national  pros- 
perity, tends  to  reduce  everything  to  a  rude  and  unprofitable  agri- 
culture, if  such  it  can  be  called,  impoverishing  both  to  the  land  and 
to  those  who  till  it ;  subjecting  them  to  enormous  taxes  in  trans- 
portation, and  compelling  them  to  sell  at  from  25  to  50  per  cent, 
less  than  they  could  get  from  customers  at  home,  if  such  were  to  be 
found. 

Our  railroad  securities  all  over  the  country  are  not  worth  an  aver- 
age of  half  their  par  value,  and  we  have  failed  in  our  attempt  to 
support  a  line  of  ocean  steamers.  Where  then  shall  we  look  for  the 
evidence  of  our  great  wealth  and  power.  If  it  exists  at  all,  it  is  in 
the  credit  of  the  general  government,  for  when  a  man  has  the  real 
property  he  can  borrow  money  on  it. 

How  far  that  credit  would  go  must  be  a  matter  of  conjecture,  and 
as  I  have  said,  each  one  must  judge  for  himself.  In  another  article 
I  propose  to  inquire  into  the  condition  of  the  producing  portion  of 
our  country,  and  to  see  to  what  extent  they  are  really  entitled  to 
credit,  from  which  we  may  infer  something  as  to  the  extent  to  which 
the  credit  of  our  general  government  might  be  extended. 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  23 

No.    7. 
The    South    and  West. 

A  farmer  who  is  surrounded  by  his  customers,  and  can  sell  his  produce 
at  his  own  door,  realises  25  to  50  per  cent,  better  prices  than  if  he  is 
obliged  to  send  it  to  a  distant  market,  to  which  also  he  must  pay  the 
cost  of  transportation.  This,  every  farmer  knows,  and  it  is  this  home 
market  which  diversifies  the  products  of  his  farm,  enables  him  to 
return  something  each  year  to  his  land,  bring  the  year  about,  and, 
by  prudence  and  economy,  perhaps,  to  save  something  for  a  rainy 
day.  AVhere  the  farmer  and  manufacturer  work  together,  each  buy- 
ing of  the  other,  there  we  see  the  most  rapid  accumulation  of  capital, 
as  in  the  New  England  States.  The  farmer,  however,  is  more  de- 
pendent on  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  manufacturer,  than  is  the 
latter  upon  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  farmer.  The  operatives 
must  eat,  but  their  food  maybe  brought  thousands  of  miles,  as  in  the 
case  of  England.  The  farmer  must  also  sell  his  produce,  but  if  he 
has  to  send  it  several  thousand  miles  he  is  engaged  in  a  process 
which  is  impoverishing  his  land,  and  impoverishing  himself  Of 
course  he  cannot  accumulate  wealth,  or  enjoy  the  credit  that  is  based 
upon  wealth. 

The  latter  condition  is  precisely  that  of  our  slaveholding  States, 
and  those  States  exclusively  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits — such 
a^  Iowa,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Michigan,  Kanzas,  and  Cali- 
fornia— the  most  impoverishing  and  demoralizing  of  all  productive 
employments  being  that  of  mining  for  silver  and  gold.  All  the  gold 
that  has  been  dug  has  enriched  neither  the  miner,  nor  the  State,  nor 
the  world,  but  only  reduced  the  relative  value  of  that  metal ;  and  it 
may  be  true,  as  has  been  said,  that  California  has  cost  us  four  times 
as  much  as  she  is  worth.  The  cotton  and  grain  producing  States 
have  each  one  advantage  over  the  other — offset,  however,  by  a  cor- 
responding disadvantage.  The  former  are  compelled  to  use  the 
most  expensive  and  impoverishing  labor  in  the  world,  while  they 
enjoy  a  monopoly  of  the  article  they  raise,  and  are  therefore  better 
able  to  keep  up  the  price.  The  grain  growing  States  have  no  mo- 
nopoly of  their  produce,  but  must  compete  in  the  London  market  with 
the  pauper  labor  of  the  grain  growing  regions  of  Europe,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  they  enjoy  the  advantage  over  the  South  of  more 
intelligent  and  profitable  labor. 


24  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

Both  South  and  West,  under  a  free  trade  system  which  removes 
the  farmer  from  the  manufacturer  and  compels  him  to  send  his  prod- 
uce at  great  loss  and  expense  to  a  foreign  market,  labor  under  a 
very  great  disadvantage  as  compared  with  what  their  condition 
would  be  under  a  protective  system,  which  builds  up  for  them  a 
home  market  and  secures  for  them  more  remunerative  prices.  The 
South  and  West  are  poor,  and  from  the  necessity  of  the  case  must 
remain  so, — certainly  while  they  send  their  produce  to  foreign  mar- 
kets.* As  individual  States  they  can  enjoy  but  very  limited  credit ; 
and  if  they  were  joined  in  a  confederacy,  the  new  union  would  find 
it  impossible  to  raise  fleets  and  armies,  build  churches  and  colleges, 
and  do  all  those  things  which  pertain  to  a  wealthy  community.  No 
producing  nation  ever  did  or  ever  can  do  these  things.  As  before 
suggested,  their  crops  are  for  the  most  consumed  before  they  go  to 
market,  and  oftentimes  more  than  consumed,  leaving  them  in  debt 
and  without  the  basis  on  which  credit  must  rest.  Strictly  producing 
nations  are  unable  to  carry  their  own  produce  to  market,  still  less  to 
support  fleets  and  armies. 

California  7  per  cent,  securities  sell  for  82  per  cent.,  showing  the 
lowest  point  of  credit  among  the  States,  and  that  based  upon  an  ex- 
port of  over  $50,000,000  of  gold  per  annum.  Now  the  producing 
States  are  twenty-one,  out  of  the  thirty-two  composing  the  Union, 
while  the  great  States  of  Ohio,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania,  al- 
though they  have  made  considerable  progress  in  manufactures,  are 
still  largely  producing  States. 

Notwithstanding,  therefore,  the  capital  accumulated  in  a  few  of  the 
manufacturing  States,  we  must  conclude  that  the  credit  of  the  nation, 
which  must  be  based  on  the  wealth  of  the  individual  States,  would 
not  be  equal  to  any  large  demand  upon  it,  nor  have  we  any  reason, 
from  the  present  state  of  things,  to  suppose  otherwise.  If  these 
things  are  true,  with  what  propriety  can  we  call  ourselves  very  rich 
and  powerful,  or  compare  ourselves,  in  either  of  these  respects,  with 
England  and  France.  We  can  defend  ourselves,  no  doubt ;  but 
that,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  in  itself  alone  a  proof  either  of  strength 

*  "  At  St.  Paul's,  Minnesota,  rents  haTe  declined  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent.,  while 
real  estate  has,  on  an  average,  lost  one-third  of  last  year's  valuation.  Outside  the  city  the 
decrease  has  been  greater.  Wages  have  partaken  of  the  downward  tendency,  and  laborers 
who  last  year  obtained  $1,59  per  day,  are  this  year  forced  to  be  content  with  90  cents.  From. 
Iowa,  too,  there  is  a  general  cry  of  hard  times.  We  hear  of  young  men  who  have  gone  from 
this  section  to  the  West  during  the  last  six  months,  to  seek  employment,  who  came  back  with 
very  diEferent  notions  of  the  resources  of  the  West  from  what  they  had  when  they  started, 
and  purses  sadly  depleted."  —  [Boston  Journal,  Dec.  9, 1858. 


EXPORTS   AND    IMPORTS.  25 

or  of  wealth,  but  only  what  was  done  by  the  Swiss  Mountaineers  or 
the  Scotch  Highlanders. 

The  conclusions  to  which  we  must  come,  from  the  slight  survey 
which  my  limits  permit,  is,  that  our  real  wealth  is  by  no  means 
what  many  suppose  it  to  be,  and  that  we  have  visibly  declined, 
within  the  last  few  years,  in  all  those  elements  which  go  to  make  up 
the  strength  of  a  nation.  Against  these  facts,  which  can  hardly  be 
denied,  I  put  the  other  great  fact,  that  we  are  exporting  to  distant 
markets  over  $300,000,000  in  produce  and  raw  material,  and  only 
$30,000,000  of  manufactured  goods.  The  condition  of  the  United 
States,  then,  with  all  the  counteracting  causes,  of  youth,  virgin  soil, 
race,  and  natural  resources  of  all  kinds,  still  adds  its  testimony  in 
favor  of  the  great  law. 

No  other  nation  ever  flourished  under  such  a  system ;  why  should 
we  expect  to  escape  ?  We  have  industry,  invention,  and  energy,  in 
the  highest  degree,  but  we  cannot  work  miracles,  we  cannot  control 
the  laws  of  nature,  or  of  trade.  These  still  stand  in  our  way.  We 
can  turn  them  both  to  our  advantage,  but  we  cannot  alter  them, 
whatever  else  we  may  do.  What  is  true  of  Cuba,  South  America, 
Spain,  and  Turkey,  must  be  true  of  ourselves,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent.  No  natural  advantages  of  climate,  or  of  race,  can  overcome 
the  effects  of  a  false  system,  though  they  may,  for  a  time,  postpone 
them,  or  diminish  their  force.     In  the  end,  all  must  submit  to  the  law. 

Nothing  is  more  vain  than  to  suppose  we  can  stand  up  against 
such  tremendous  odds  as  an  export  of  $600,000,000  of  manufactured 
goods,  with  only  $30,000,000  on  our  side.  Wherever  England  gets 
control  of  a  market  there  she  establishes  a  colony,  in  fact,  whatever 
it  may  be  in  name.  Gradually  she  brings  it  into  her  debt,  and 
under  the  controlling  influence  of  the  great  commercial  centre. 

In  one  more  article  I  propose  to  consider,  briefly,  the 
plausible,  but  most  foolish,  not  to  say  absurd  objection,  ex- 
isting in  the  minds  of  many,  that  the  protection  of  one  interest  or 
class  of  interests  is  at  the  expense  of  others.  This  is  the  principal 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  proper  protective  policy,  and  is  the  argu- 
ment you  will  hear  used,  on  all  occasions,  by  those  who,  either  from 
want  of  thought,  or  servility  to  party,  or  some  worse  reason,  if  such 
there  can  be,  would  keep  us  perpetually  under  the  depressing  and 
ruinous  influence  of  free  trade  with  the  great  manufacturing  nations 
of  Europe. 

4 


26  •  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

No.    8. 
Protection  to  One  is  Protection  to  All. 

Without  any  such  intention  when  I  sent  you  the  first  article  on 
Exports  and  Imports,  I  have  been  led  on  from  step  to  step,  until 
some  of  your  readers  have  perhaps  become  tired  of  the  subject.  If 
any  excuse  were  needed  it  might  be  found  in  its  immense  import- 
ance, not  to  one  part  of  the  country,  but  to  all — to  farmers  and 
planters  as  well  as  manufacturers  and  miners.  Unless  we  intend 
to  run  our  ship  entirely  ashore,  it  is  quite  time  that  we  should 
awake  from  our  state  of  apathy  and  indifi'erence,  and  endeavor  to 
exert  what  influence  we  have  to  help  work  off  and  avoid  the 
breakers  that  threaten  us.  I  have  endeavored  to  show  what  is, 
perhaps,  too  obvious  to  be  in  need  of  proof,  that  nations  become 
rich  and  powerful,  civilized  and  refined,  in  the  ratio  which  their 
manufactured  exports  bear  to  their  exports  of  produce  and  raw 
material.  The  condition  of  all  nations  and  of  our  own  unites  in 
proving  the  existence  of  this  law,  and  that  it  is  universal  and  in- 
variable. If  this  is  true,  we  may  well  pause  and  consider  of  the 
course  we  are  pursuing,  of  the  fact  that  our  exports  are  $300,000,- 
000  in  produce  to  $30,000,000  in  manufactures,  and  that  our 
legislation  in  1846  and  1857  was  intended,  and  operates  constant- 
ly to  increase  this  difference,  and  bring  us,  each  year,  nearer  to 
the  miserable  condition  of  a  merely  producing  nation. 

One  of  those  popular  fallacies  which  sometimes  gain  currency, 
and  are  used  by  designing  men  for  some  personal  advantage  of 
their  own,  is  the  common  remark,  that  the  protection  of  one  inter- 
est is  at  the  expense  of  others ;  and  so,  from  a  most  absurd  and 
senseless  jealousy  of  each  other,  we  surrender  our  great  industrial 
interests,  throw  away  our  advantages,  and  allow  them  to  be  reaped 
by  foreigners  and  by  the  very  people  of  whom  we  profess  the 
greatest  jealousy,  against  whom  we  thunder  our  patriotic  speeches 
in  Congress,  and  again,  on  each  returning  anniversary  of  our  Dec- 
laration of  Independence. 

We,  each  year,  declare  anew  our  Independence  of  Great  Britain, 
and  each  year  become,  in  fact,  more  in  debt  and  more  dependent 


EXPORTS    AND   IMPORTS.  27 

on  that  nation,  by  throwing  open  our  markets  and  allowing  her  to 
supply  us  with  #100,000,000  worth  of  manufactured  goods  per 
annum.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  patriotism  of  our  speeches,  un- 
less it  is  the  want  of  it  in  our  actions,  and  should  Mustapha  Rub-a- 
Dub  pay  us  another  visit  and  listen  to  some  of  our  orators,  he 
would,  no  doubt,  find  himself  as  much  puzzled  as  ever,  and  ex- 
claim, as  before,  "what  a  wonderful  people  !"  When  a  house  is 
divided  against  itself  it  is  exposed,  of  course,  to  the  common  ene- 
my. Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  this  objection,  that  when  we 
protect  one  interest  we  do  so  at  the  expense  and  to  the  injury  of 
others.  If  it  should  prove  entirely  without  foundation,  how  absurd 
will  appear  our  conduct,  quarrelling  with  each  other,  and  making 
ourselves  poor,  in  order  to  enrich  and  strengthen  our  foreign  rival, 
of  which  we  profess  so  much  jealousy. 

Let  us  suppose,  for  instance,  that  only  the  single  article  of  Iron 
was  protected,  and  this  so  completely  as  to  give  our  own  market 
to'^our  own  manufacturers.  Who,  in  this  case,  would  be  injured  ? 
Certainly  not  those  who  require  the  cheapest, iron  for  railroads,  or 
for  other  purposes,  or  the  best  iron,  which  the  American  is  said  to 
be,  for  the  manufacture  of  rails  and  many  other  articles.  Home 
competition,  we  know,  is  the  severest  of  all,  and  necessarily  brings 
the  price  down  to  the  lowest  living  point,  and  lower  than  it  could 
ever  have  been  brought  in  any  other  wa)%  as  has  been  proved  over 
and  over  again  in  the  case  of  coarse  cottons  and  other  articles. 

No  man  can  enjoy  a  monopoly  in  a  business  that  is  open  to  all, 
and  the  surest  way  to  reduce  an  article  to  the  lowest  price  is  to 
secure  to  our  own  countrymen  the  exclusive  right  of  making  it. 
Competition  does  the  work  as  surely  as  water  runs  down  hill,  and 
must  always  find  its  level.  The  consumer  of  the  iron,  then,  is 
greatly  benefited,  instead  of  being  injured,  by  what  secures  to 
our  iron  manufacturers  the  home  market.  The  farmer  is  cer- 
tainly very  much  benefited  by  what  gives  him  a  home  market  and 
good  prices  for  his  produce ;  the  laborer  and  operative  are  bene- 
fited by  what  gives  them  employment  and  good  wages ;  while  the 
physician,  the  lawyer,  the  minister,  schoolmaster,  editor,  and  mer- 
chant, together  with  all  others  who  depend  on  the  laboring  and 
producing  classes  for  support,  are  also  greatly  benefited. 

Who,  then,  is  injured,  supposing  that  only  the  single  article  of 
iron  was  protected,  and  all  the  rest  left  without  protection  ?  For 
a  short  time,  at  first,  consumers  might  have  to  pay  a  little  more 


28  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

for  tlieir  iron,  but  tliey  could  pay  in  tlieir  own  way,  and  get  a  very 
much  better  price  for  their  own  goods,  whether  they  were  profes- 
sional, or  agricultural,  or  mechanical,  or  railroad  tickets.  The 
extra  price  of  iron,  before  competition,  should  reduce  it  to  a  lower 
point  than  it  could  ever  have  reached  without  protection,  is  noth- 
ing but  the  seed-corn  which  the  farmer  throws  into  the  ground, 
that  he  may  receive  it  back  again  an  hundred  fold.  Every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  country  would  receive  immediate  and  di- 
rect benefit,  then,  if  iron  only  was  protected.  The  same  is  true  of 
cotton.  The  present  consumption  of  cotton,  in  this  country,  is  en- 
tirely due  to  protection,  and  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  double  market  is  worth,  to  the  planter,  at  least  two 
cents  per  pound  on  his  cotton,  and  it  may  bo  much  more  than  that 
while  he  gets  in  return  a  better  and  cheaper  article  of  cotton  drill- 
ing than  he  could  obtain  in  any  part  of  the  world,  if  it  was  ad- 
mitted without  duty — some  of  our  coarser  cotton  manufactures 
having  reached  a  point,  sooner  or  later  reached  by  all  if  sufficiently 
protected,  when  they  can  stand  alone  against  foreign  competition, 
and  not  only  so,  but  furnish  a  cheaper  and  better  article  tlian  can 
be  obtained  from  abroad  though  it  should  be  admitted,  free  of  duty.* 
This  would  have  been  true  of  Iron  before  this  time,  had  the  Tariff 
of  1842  been  allowed  to  remain — such  are  benefits  of  protection 
to  the  South  and  to  the  West. 

To  suppose  that  manufacturers  can  enjoy  a  monopoly,  in  a 
business  that  is  open  to  all,  is  absurd,  and  contradicted  by  the  ex- 
perience of  all  business  men.  The  great  benefits  of  a  protective 
tariff  flow  to  other  parties,  rather  than  to  the  manufacturers,  and 
a  bill  providing  for  such  a  tariff  should  be  called  a  "bill  to  protect 
and  secure  the  cotton  planting  and  agricultural  interests  of  the 
nation,  together  with  labor  of  all  descriptions,  whether  of  the  body 
or  of  the  mind."     This  would  be  a  perfectly  proper  and  just  de- 

*  Mr.  Nathan  Apploton  in  his  very  interesting  pamphlet  upon  the  origin  of  Lowell,  gives 
on  page  IG,  tlio  following  changes  in  the  price  of  the  article  of  cotton  cloth  first  nianti- 
facturod  at  AValtham. 


1816, 

. 

. 

30  cts.  per  yard. 

1819, 

. 

- 

21  " 

182G, 

. 

- 

13  " 

1829, 

. 

- 

8i  " 

1848, 

- 

- 

6i  " 

From  that  time  pays  Mr.  Appleton,  the  price  has  fluctuated  with  the  price  of  cotton  from 
7  to  9  cts.  per  yard.  It  is  a  very  singular  fact  that  precisely  the  same  article  first  attempted 
in  Waltliam  forty  years  ago  nhould  lie  the  one  called  for  ever  since  and  made  at  the  present 
day. 


EXPORTS    AND   IMPORTS.  '29 

scription  of  such  a  bill,  which  is  supposed  by  some,  both  in  and  out 
of  Congress,  to  be  for  ihc  exclusive  benefit  of  the  manufacturers. 

The  truth  is  that,  when  you  protect  manufactures,  you  protect 
every  other  interest,  for  all  others  are  directly  dependent  on 
them,  especially  that  of  the  farmer  and  planter.  Instead  of  being 
a  separate  and  distinct  interest,  as  you  might  suppose  from  the 
language  sometimes  used,  they  constitute  the  great  interests  of 
each  and  every  member  of  society,  be  he  rich  or  poor,  learned  or 
unlearned,  humble  or  exalted.  They  consume  the  farmer's  prod- 
uce, the  poor  man's  labor,  the  rich  man's  capital,  the  merchant's 
ship,  and  bring  prosperity  to  all.  Neglect  them  and  all  must  suf- 
fer, as  at  the  present  time,  and  in  the  years  preceding  the  tariffs 
of  1824,  1828,  and  1842.  Foster  and  protect  them,  and  all  must 
prosper,  as  in  the  years  succeeding  those  dates. 

We  have  seen  how  important  to  the  South,  in  a  pecuniary  point 
of  view,  is  a  protective  tariff.  It  is  important,  also,  for  other  and 
very  grave  reasons.  When  a  nation  is  prosperous  and  the  people 
employed,  they  are  generally  contented  and  happy,  and  not  prone 
to  run  after  abstractions,  or  seek  causes  for  difference  and  quarrel. 
Such  a  state  of  things  is  highly  desirable  for  the  South,  as  well  as 
for  the  North,  and  nothing  will  contribute  so  much  to  such  a  result 
as  the  abandonment,  on  the  part  of  the  South,  of  their  free  trade 
doctrines,  delusive  and  absurd,  because  in  the  present  condition 
of  the  world  they  are  impracticable  and  impossible,  and  quite  as 
fatal  to  the  prosperity  of  the  South  and  West,  as  to  that  of  the 
East.  England  is  making  great  efforts  to  obtain  cotton  from  Af- 
rica and  France,  to  get  her  supply  from  Algeria.  There  is  reason 
to  believe  that  the  vast  continent  of  Africa  will  become  a  cotton- 
growing  region,  and  when  that  time  comes  the  South  will  see 
more  clearly  the  importance  of  building  up  a  home  market  for  her 
great  staple.* 


*  The  following  paragraph  contains  the  whole  sum  and  substance  of  the  argument  in  favor 
of  a  protective  policy,  showing  as  it  does  the  importance  of  a  home  market. 

New  Cotton  Market.  Mr.  Kendall  writes  to  the  Picayune,  from  New  Braunfels,  Texas: 
*'  Our  planters  about  here  have  a  new  market  for  their  cotton  —  a  market  which  was  hardly 
thought  of  a  few  years  since.  In  our  streets  can  now  be  seen  a  long  train  of  Mexican  carts, 
all  the  way  from  Saltillo,  picking  up  the  cotton  between  this  and  the  San  Maroos,  and  lower 
down  the  country,  all  of  which  is  destined  for  the  Mexican  factories  beyond  Monterey  and 
the  Sierra,  Madre.  The  manufacturers  there  find  it  for  their  interest  to  send  directly  here  to 
buy  the  cotton  tliey  require  at  tlie  plantations,  and  send  it  off  on  the  long  journey  in  the 
rude  carts  of  the  country.    Our  plantees,  meanwhile,  receive  better  prices  than  tuet 

COULD  POSSIBLT  OBTAIN  BY  SENSING  THEIR  COTTON  TO  INDIANOLA   OR  QaLVESTON." 


30  EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS. 

The  only  chance  for  ^prosperity,  to  the  jjroducer,  is,  that  he  can 
secure  to  himself  a  home  market.  If  he  depends  on  a  distant  market, 
his  poverty  and  dependence  are  certain  and  inevitable.  Mis  true  and 
only  policy  is,  to  bring  his  customers,  as  near  as  possible,  to  his  own 
door,  and  thus  raise  up  consumers  at  home  for  the  products  of  his 
farm  or  his  plantation.  Protection  does  this,  and  the  producer  is  the 
party  most  benefited  by  it,  if  either  party  has  the  largest  share  in  a 
common  and  universal  prosperity. 

Food  and  raw  materials  are  not  so  much  wealth  as  the  means 
of  producing  wealth.  The  greatest  mistake,  therefore,  that  a  na- 
tion can  make  is,  to  send  away  its  materials  to  be  worked 
up  into  wealth  by  others.  No  nation  that  does  so  should  boast 
much  of  its  shrewdness  or  intelligence.  It  is  obvious,  therefore, 
that  our  true  and  only  policy  is  to  protect  our  manufactures 
and  increase  the  export  of  them,  while  we  diminish,  as  fast  as 
possible,  the  export  of  our  raw  materials,  by  consuming  them 
ourselves. 

This  is  the  policy  which  has  made  England  so  rich  and  so 
powerful,  and  to  keep  us  from  adopting  it  her  manufacturers  have 
raised  large  sums  for  the  purpose  of  circulating  Free  Trade  docu- 
ments in  the  United  States.  Fifty  thousand  dollars  were  sub- 
scribed by  twenty  firms  in  Manchester,  Glasgow,  and  Leeds,  for 
that  purpose,  just  before  the  passage  of  our  Tariff  of  1846,  and 
more  will  doubtless  be  ready  when  wanted  to  bear  upon  our  legis- 
lation at  Washington.*'  It  is  quite  time  that  we  should  be  look- 
ing after  our  own  interests,  as  we  may  be  sure  others  will  do  in 
regard  to  theirs. 

Having  endeavored,  to  the  extent  of  my  humble  means,  to 
arouse  the  attention  of  the  people,  too  long  indifferent  upon  a  sub- 
ject of  such  vital  consequence  to  individuals,  to  the  nation,  in  every 
point  of  view,  and  to  every  conceivable  interest,  I  take  leave  of 
your  readers,  with  the  hope  that  other  and  abler  hands  may  be 
induced  to  take  hold  of  this  work,  before  we  have  lost  many  more 
millions  of  dollars,  or  sunk  much  further  into  the  abyss  of  national 
bankruptcy  and  colonial  dependence. 

*  Abraham  Lees,  Manchester,  $100;  fl.  Lees  &  Brother,  Manchester,  §200;  Alfred  Ringen, 
Manchester,  $1,000;  J.  &  N.  Phillips  &  Co.,  Manchester,  $2,500;  Wm.  Walker,  Manchester, 
$1,000;  Alfred  Orrel,  Manchester,  $1,000;  George  Foster,  Manchester,  $1,000;  Others  in 
Manchester,  $10,000;  The  Lord  Prevost,  Glasgow,  $500;  A.  &  J.  Dunistown,  Glasgow,  $1,000; 
Chas.  Tennant  &  Co.,  Glasgow,  $1,000;  Wm.  Dixon,  Glasgow,  $1,000;  Samuel  Iligginbotham , 
Glasgow,  $1,000;  Dunlop,  Wilson  &  Co.,  Glasgow,  $1,000;  Others  in  Glasgow,  over  $11,000; 
Marshall  &  Co.,  Leeds,  $2,500;  Others  in  Leeds,  $9,000;  AcKtoy  &  Sous,  Halifax,  $1,000? 
Others  in  HaUfax,  $5,500;  Total,  $51,300. 


*ri:i':'^L 


■'-it's 


